Teaching the Cowboy

Teaching the Cowboy
by Holley Trent
Copyright © Holley Trent, 2014

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This e-book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

Musa Publishing
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www.MusaPublishing.com

Issued by Musa Publishing LLC, February 2014

This e-book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this e-book can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.

ISBN
: 978-1-61937-508-6

Editor: Marci Clark
Artist: Kelly Shorten
Line Editor: Damien Walters Grintalis
Interior Book Design: Cera Smith

Warning

This e-book contains adult language and scenes. This story is meant only for adults as defined by the laws of the country where you made your purchase. Store your e-books carefully where they cannot be accessed by younger readers.

For my sister Dee, who knows where she belongs and won't be otherwise swayed.
There's a bit of you in Ronnie, girl.

Chapter One

“I
’ve been holding my tongue for the past minute afraid you’d bite my head off, but shit, honey, I think we passed it.”

Veronica Silver kept her eyes locked on the deserted highway ahead and said nothing. She meditated on the hazy horizon ahead. She ground her teeth. With a quick flick of her gaze to the right, she growled.

“Yeesh.” Her co-driver, and best friend of nearly two decades, cautiously extended a hand and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Ronnie, that means we have to turn around,” he said in that pedantic, patronizing tone that always made her wonder why they were friends at all.

Generally, Ronnie tolerated Phil’s quirks—and he had worse ones—but being confined in a tiny car for several days had made all his flaws seem particularly exasperating. He’d certainly said as much about hers.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and lifted her foot off the accelerator. “I know what it means, Phil.”

He eased his hand away and reoriented the paper map he held on his lap. They’d picked it up at a rest stop somewhere in Nebraska. Phil thought it’d been funny when Ronnie’s phone lost 4G, 3G, and
golly
-gee, for that matter. He’d laughed and made some quip about how his network had more cellular towers than any other carrier in the country. He’d navigated them from the point of Ronnie’s cellular dead zone in Ogallala to Kimball, and then his majestic cellular bauble took a crap, too. They were navigating in analog, and doing so was testing the mettle of their longtime acquaintance.

“What time are they expecting you?”

Ronnie angled her car onto the shoulder and performed a three-point turn in five points before answering. “Eleven.”

It was going on twelve. They’d made a bad turn onto a county dirt road which Phil insisted was an outlet to I-25.

It hadn’t been.

“Ronnie,” came that patronizing voice again. “Honey, was this really the only position the agency had left? And slow down. That gateway up on the right is your turn-off.”

She didn’t answer until she was safely off the highway and passing under the giant
Erickson Ranch
gateway they’d somehow managed to miss on the first pass. She could just barely make out some buildings off in the distance. How much land did these people own, for
chrissake
? “Yes. This was the only position left for this year.”

She could see Phil shaking his head side-to-side in her periphery and braced herself for whatever snark that came next.

“I’m so sorry. I really, truly am. You’re going to be just like the little mermaid on shore for the first time with no legs. You don’t even have the ditsy seagull for counsel.”

“I don’t know, you’re plenty ditsy right now, pretty boy.”

He flicked his black hair back from his eyes with his usual flair. “Jealous.”

She sighed and slumped a little lower in the driver’s seat. “I can do it. It’s just one year. I can do anything for a year, and when I’m done, I’ll start my PhD program and move on to a job where I can affect real change. Just one year.” She sounded convinced, but she damn sure didn’t feel it. Her gung-ho enthusiasm about the adventure had waned somewhere near Lincoln. She’d asked a waitress for sweet tea and received a blank stare in response. Apparently, the Midwest had a learning curve.

“Mm-hmm. It’s going to take you a year after you leave here just to get the stink off.”

She turned her head just in time to see Phil shudder. “You’re not helping.”

“Sorry, honey. You should have brought along a less honest friend.”

“I tried, but they were all busy.”

“Lucky ducks.” He bolted upright suddenly and Ronnie understood why. “Holy shit, is this a ranch or a plantation?”

She took in the scope of the massive structure that was the Erickson abode, becoming larger the farther up the ranch road they travelled. They could probably put six of the apartment she and Phil shared inside one of that house. “Ranch,” she said, scanning the much-smaller structures in the distance down the road that must have been staff housing and outbuildings.

“And how many kids does this family have?”

“The agency was unclear. They said this was definitely a special case, and I might be able to win a grant if I can stick it out. Possibly get some ideas for my dissertation. I’ll be teaching either six or seven kids. The Ericksons have four, and the family next door was sort of noncommittal about their headcount.”

“Next door?” He craned his neck, looking for a large home in either direction, but they were just too far. “Where’s that? Egypt?”

“Uh-huh.” She swallowed hard.

“Ronnie?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re terrified, aren’t ya, honey?”

“Terror wouldn’t be the right word, but now that I’m here, I’m certainly feeling a little less confident.”

“Remember what I told you all those years ago backstage at the convention center when you were in the Miss Cumberland County Pageant?”

She snorted. “Yeah, I remember. You told me to stop switching my hips so hard because I had a bigger ass than the rest of the girls and had to compensate.”

He groaned. “Not that part.”

“What, the hypnotize them with my tits part?”

“No.” He slapped the center console. “You’re being purposefully dense. I told you to walk onto that stage like you had the biggest balls in the room.”

And she did. Had a tiara to show for it.

“How many miles from the highway are we?” he asked.

She glanced at the odometer. “Three, so far.”

“God
damn
.” He settled low in his seat again and pushed his sunglasses on. “Well, anyway, seven kids aren’t so bad compared to the hundred and five you had last year, right?”

“Yeah, but those were two grades and only two curriculums. This is going to be…”

“A hot stinkin’ pile of steer shit?”

“I can’t wait to take you to the airport,” she mumbled as she pulled up in front of the house and pushed her gear shifter into park.

“You’re going to miss me, admit it.”

“Well, who else am I going to get to hold my blow dryer while I brush?” She took a deep, steadying breath, and pushed open her door as a horde of blond-haired, blue-eyed Vikings in cowboy boots descended upon her car.

“Oh, shit,” Phil moaned. “Are we about to get lynched?”

She grinned broader and said through her clenched teeth, “Let’s just think happy thoughts, shall we? Mind over matter.”

“You mind your own matter. I’m staying in the car.”

She turned around and bared her teeth at her childhood friend. “What were you saying about big balls?”

He growled and yanked his door handle, muttering under his breath.

She closed her door, smoothed the wrinkles from her coral silk shell the best she could, and made sure her smile was big and broad. She’d won five pageants with that grin.

“Hi, I’m Veronica Silver.” She extended a hand for
whomever
to take. “You can call me Ronnie.”

The broadest of the male Vikings, a man of around forty with hair going slightly gray at the temples, and a bit of a paunch hanging over his belt, strode forward with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Ew.

He clasped his two big, rough hands around hers. “How’re ya? I wish you would have let us fly you out. Must have been an awful borin’ drive. I’m Ted. This here’s my wife Becka.”

A woman, presumably Becka, hurried forward wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She gave Ronnie’s hand a vigorous shake and returned her overzealous grin with one of her own. Ronnie thought Becka’s, however, must have been her usual state given how crazed it was. She couldn’t blame her, considering the environment.

“I bet you’re exhausted. Have you eaten? Please tell me you haven’t eaten. I’ll be so upset if you have.” Her smile wilted.

Before Ronnie could answer, a young voice from the back of the congregation piped up, “Are you black?”

Ronnie’s cheeks grew warm even as an older kid mumbled, “Rude, Peter.”

Damn it. Well, he’s just a kid. He doesn’t mean anything by it.

“Kinda,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to locate the source of the voice.

The source, Peter, poked his shaggy-haired head through a couple of the adult bodies in front of him. “What about you?” He tipped his chin up to Phil.

Ronnie stifled a laugh as Phil lifted one of his dark eyebrows into a question mark.

Be nice, Phil.

“I’m Native American. Do you know what that means?”

Whoops. Captain Tactless.

“Don’t mind him, he’s a doofus,” the young man who’d previously scolded Peter said as he grabbed the boy by the shirt and yanked him back. He pushed his glasses up his nose and gave Phil an apologetic smile.

Phil shrugged and then winked at the kid.

Ronnie sidled over to her BFF and pretended to pat his back. In reality, she made a discreet grab of a mound of his back flesh between her thumb and forefinger and gave it a squeeze.

He jolted but didn’t squeak.

A little girl, probably around five, with uncombed hair and what appeared to be chocolate milk stains on her white tank top, stepped forward and craned her neck up to Ronnie. “How do you get your hair to do that?”

Ronnie’s hand went to the high bun atop her head and patted it. “Do what, sweetie?”

“Stay still.”

“Just a brush and a hair elastic, sweetie.”

“And hairspray. And a flat iron. And the occasional two hundred bucks spent at the stylist’s. And lots of blow-drying,” Phil mumbled. Ronnie pinched him again, and that time he yipped like a puppy that’d had its tail stepped on.

Shut up.

A hand rested atop the little blonde’s head. Ronnie’s gaze trailed up its arm, past a broad shoulder clad in plaid, past an Adam’s apple, up to a chiseled chin darkened with a day’s worth of stubble. That was nice. Scruff seemed hard to come by in her social circle.

She didn’t linger there, though. There was a lot to take in. His luscious pink lips twitched into a smirk, and she scanned upward past the nose that had seen a break or two. That intrigued her, because she didn’t know if the imperfection was caused by his own recklessness or just hard work gone rough.

The owner of all masculine splendor tipped back his cowboy hat. With the shadow now removed from his face, she stared into the palest blue eyes she’d ever seen in person. They were the kind of blue that was practically silver. A mercurial sort of color. A person could get hypnotized by that kind of stare.

And maybe Ronnie did, because his mouth moved, and words probably came out of those lips, but she sure as hell didn’t hear them. The visual overload rendered her deaf.

My, my, my. Welcome to Wyoming.

Phil nudged her ribs with his elbow.

“Huh?” She ripped her gaze away to look at her road trip buddy.

“Mr. Lundstrom was introducing himself, Ron.”

“Oh.” She tipped her sunglasses onto the top of her head and put her hand out again.

He took it.

“Sorry, I…” She felt around for something that wouldn’t make her sound like a bumbling idiot. None of the charm and public speaking classes she’d completed as a debutante prepared her for this sort of opponent. She swallowed. “I was worried I left a box with some important supplies back in my apartment. Didn’t mean to zone out on you. Ronnie Silver.”

“Hi, Ronnie.”

White teeth and a low voice that made her temperature spike a bit. Tall, broad, tanned, drop-dead gorgeous sex on two legs. She tried to think of some Bible verse to cleanse her desire to have him ride her like a mare in estrus. Funny, she couldn’t think of a single one.

There was so much flirt in his smile, her gaze flitted down to the left hand atop the little girl’s head. No ring.

This guy for real?

“Johan Lundstrom,” he repeated. He chuckled and smiled broader when Ronnie raised a brow. “Junior. Most people call me
John
. I own the neighboring ranch.”

“Oh. Mr. Lundstrom, it is,” she wheezed.

They shook hands some more until Phil cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m Phil Oxendine, not that anyone asked or gives a damn. I did exactly fifty-five point five percent of the driving on this little Western adventure.” He made a little
whoopdie-do
gesture with his right hand.

“That much?” the young man with the glasses asked as a grin spread across his face. Apparently, he found Phil amusing.

Ronnie worried about the kid.

She looked from Mr. Lundstrom to the young man beside him and back to Mr. Lundstrom again. Obviously his. He didn’t really look old enough to have an adult child, but everything from the angles of their jaws to the shapes of their dark blond eyebrows were the same. The young man was slightly smaller in frame but was probably still growing.

Some time while ogling him, she’d stopped shaking Mr. Lundstrom’s hand. He hadn’t let go of hers, though.

“Oh, my math’s not that great,” Phil said with a laugh. “Don’t need it in my profession. Ronnie has some weird genetic quirk that makes her squitchy if everything isn’t equal. She’d make a perfect socialist.”

“How’d you end up with that extra five point five percent?” the young man asked.

“Ronnie’s a shitty driver when under duress.”

She closed her eyes and dropped the rancher’s hand. “God.”

“All right, let’s not crowd the poor woman.” Becka to the rescue.

Ronnie sighed her relief.

“If she’s anything like me, after three days in a car with a man, she’s probably ready to self-destruct.” Becka turned around and pointed to two of her children. “Tina, Allen, ride around with ’em and show them where the staff housing is.”

Two teenagers tossed themselves into the backseat without another word. Becka put her head inside the back and warned, “Make sure you help unload the car, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the kids said in unison before erupting into snickers.

Becka sighed and put her head in again. “I’m not playing with you two. You come right back so you can finish your work.” She pulled her head out and faced Ronnie. “You don’t have to worry about cooking for yourself tonight. It’ll probably be a while before you get settled in enough to hit the grocery store. Dinner’s at five, and if you forget I’ll send one of the kids to fetch you. Don’t worry about memorizing all these names just yet. You know, Wyoming has the smallest population of any state, and sometimes I feel like most of it is concentrated right here in Storafalt County. Don’t fret. You got a couple of days to settle in.”

She turned to John. “You come on over, too. Give Anna the night off.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and smirked. “You expecting me to say no?”

“I know how you are. Saying yes, then sending Landon over with your flimsy excuses later.”

He cut his gaze back to Ronnie. “Maybe I’ll be hungry tonight.”

Ronnie swallowed.
Oh, Jesus.